During the 1800s, the question of slavery was threatening to divide the country. States in the North banned slavery, while those in the South allowed it. Dred Scott, an enslaved man from Missouri, took his quest for freedom to the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court would decide his fate, along with the fate of slaves throughout the country. When the courts controversial decision was reached in 1857, it pushed the United States toward the Civil War, a bloody four-year conflict that almost tore the nation in two.